The present techniques relate to computer systems. More specifically, the techniques relate to the creation and management of a lightweight application programming interface (API) in a computer system.
An application programming interface (API) is computer software that allows two computer software programs to communicate with each other. The API may define the correct way for a software developer to write a program that requests services from an operating system (OS) or another underlying application. APIs may be implemented using function calls that return specified data. The required syntax for a function call may be described in the documentation of the application being called. APIs may include a specification that describes how information is exchanged between programs, which may take the form of a request for processing and a return of the necessary data, and a software interface that is written to the specification. Software that wants to access the features and capabilities of an API may issue requests to the API according to the API specification.